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Cisco Catalyst Blade Switch 3120 for HP Software Configuration Guide
OL-12247-01
Chapter 1 Overview
Network Configuration Examples
Bandwidth alone is not the only consideration when designing your network. As your network traffic
profiles evolve, consider providing network services that can support applications for voice and data
integration, multimedia integration, application prioritization, and security.
Table 1-2
describes some
network demands and how you can meet them.
You can use the switches and switch stacks to create the following:
•
Data center (
Figure 1-1
)—For high-speed access to network resources, you can use switches and
switch stacks in the access layer to provide Gigabit Ethernet access to the blade servers. To prevent
congestion, use QoS DSCP marking priorities on these switches. For high-speed IP forwarding at
the distribution layer, connect the switches in the access layer to a Gigabit multilayer switch in the
backbone, such as a Catalyst 4500 Gigabit switch or Catalyst 6500 Gigabit switch.
Table 1-2
Providing Network Services
Network Demands
Suggested Design Methods
Efficient bandwidth usage for
multimedia applications and
guaranteed bandwidth for critical
applications
•
Use IGMP snooping to efficiently forward multimedia and multicast traffic.
•
Use other QoS mechanisms such as packet classification, marking, scheduling,
and congestion avoidance to classify traffic with the appropriate priority level,
thereby providing maximum flexibility and support for mission-critical, unicast,
and multicast, and multimedia applications.
•
Use optional IP multicast routing to design networks better suited for multicast
traffic.
•
Use MVR to continuously send multicast streams in a multicast VLAN but to
isolate the streams from subscriber VLANs for bandwidth and security reasons.
High demand on network redundancy
and availability to provide always on
mission-critical applications
•
Use switch stacks, where all stack members are eligible stack masters in case of
stack-master failure. All stack members have synchronized copies of the saved
and running configuration files of the switch stack.
•
Use cross-stack EtherChannels for providing redundant links across the switch
stack.
•
Use Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP) for cluster command switch and router
redundancy.
•
Use VLAN trunks, cross-stack UplinkFast, and BackboneFast for traffic-load
balancing on the uplink ports so that the uplink port with a lower relative port cost
is selected to carry the VLAN traffic.
An evolving demand for IP telephony
•
Use QoS to prioritize applications such as IP telephony during congestion and to
help control both delay and jitter within the network.
•
Use switches that support at least two queues per port to prioritize voice and data
traffic as either high- or low-priority, based on IEEE 802.1p/Q. The switch
supports at least four queues per port.
•
Use voice VLAN IDs (VVIDs) to provide separate VLANs for voice traffic.
A growing demand for using existing
infrastructure to transport data and
voice from a home or office to the
Internet or an intranet at higher
speeds
Use the Catalyst Long-Reach Ethernet (LRE) switches to provide up to 15 Mb of IP
connectivity over existing infrastructure, such as existing telephone lines.
Note
LRE is the technology used in the Catalyst 2950 LRE switch. See the
documentation sets specific to this switch for LRE information.
